heal thyself
by psquare
Summary: Sequel to 'primum non nocere'. It all starts with a terrible bit of indiscretion and ends with a terrible decision, both of which Lemay is trying not to regret, but being the resident physician of the Musketeers garrison is not easy. AU.
Sequel of sorts to primum non nocere. References an event from the story and borrows a couple of OCs.

Warnings: AU. Spoilers till 2.06.

 _ **Heal Thyself**_

"Are you _quite_ sure?"

Lemay preoccupies himself with putting his tools away and fighting the urge to sigh. "I am indeed sure, Monsieur de Kock, that you are in perfect physical condition. In fact, in my experience, it has emerged that the longer a healthy person stays around the ill, far greater is the likelihood that either he falls ill or the patient gets worse—"

"Actually, I have a question," de Kock says, in a rush.

 _Of course you do_. "Very well, monsieur. I would be happy to answer any queries regarding—"

"In—in the b-bath," de Kock says, "especially when I'm well, submerged, I am quite unable to stop myself, from, well," he laughs weakly, leans in closer, "… _voiding_."

Lemay blinks at him, then says, in a pained voice, "In the _communal_ tub."

"Of course."

There's a muffled giggle from somewhere within the room, and Lemay recites the Lord's Prayer very silently and very fast. "It's perfectly normal, Monsieur de Kock," he says, rising to his feet and shepherding the man to the door. "My advice would be to take care of business before you get into the bath and to cut back on your consumption of wine, or failing both, to never take a bath ever again."

"Thank you, doct—" is all he's able to get out before Lemay closes the door politely but firmly in his face.

Constance laughs, folds the last piece of linen and stacks it on the lone shelf. "Thought you would've seen it all by now."

"One only ever _practises_ medicine, Madame," Lemay says, sighing. "To have seen it all, one must be close to divinity."

"Or have His patience."

Lemay smiles. "Indeed," he says.

* * *

The story has multiple iterations, each of which depends on the good doctor's mood, urgency, and, as he mingles with the soldiers more, his level of sobriety. One thing that Lemay is sure of is that it started with a terrible indiscretion (that he will _not_ regret) and ended with an equally terrible decision (that he is trying very hard _to_ regret).

The facts are these: six months ago, while attending on a noblewoman with a peculiar chronic affliction of the joints, he spied Madame Bonacieux talking to her husband. Monsieur Bonacieux seemed a disagreeable sort of man, but Lemay was not about to intervene—especially when he knew that Constance's heart lay elsewhere. It wasn't until later, when they were at Court and the Comte de Rochefort snidely suggested that Constance's motives for staying on at the Palace weren't entirely honourable, that Lemay said out loud, "Well, now, that's hardly an appropriate thing to say to her, is it?"

Further retellings would embellish that line to the extent that the neutral listener would've wondered how Lemay was not executed then and there. What actually transpired was that, in due course of time, Lemay found himself inexplicably out of favour at Court, his name firmly associated with dark magic and other unsavoury flights of imagination, and a sharp decline in his clientele. He had been slowly coming around to the idea that his reputation in Paris carried with it significantly more risk to his personal well-being than, say, the disapproval of his masters at the Sorbonne, when Captain Treville of the Musketeers approached him and offered him a job as the garrison physician. Lemay had indulged in a couple of moments of hesitation before a stern glance from Therese had him accept the Captain's offer.

"If you can guarantee my safety, then, of course," he'd said.

"Upon my honour, no harm will come to you," the Captain had replied, and Lemay suddenly found himself quite enamoured of the idea of treating actual battle-worn soldiers, a change from the nobility who found imbalances in their humours at the slightest shift in the weather. He'd long since thought the Musketeers were a largely ceremonial regiment, an overwhelmingly leather-clad brooch that the King might wear on his cloak when he fancied it, but soldiers they were, nevertheless: Lemay was already looking forward to applying all that he had learned about battlefield surgery.

Therese and Nostradamus accompanied him to his new quarters at the garrison. They had no choice in the matter, of course, given that their names were inextricably associated with his—a fact that Therese took to repeating to him loudly and often. "A man of medicine with a heart as malleable as yours, Monsieur Lemay," she'd said, stacking several unopened bottles of brandy, "is doomed to find both heady success and a swift death. And you _would_ drag everybody you know down with you."

"If you would arrange the herb jars next, Madame, I would be most obliged," he'd told her distractedly, and had received a most disgruntled snort thrown in his direction.

He hadn't expected to see Constance living there already, having left her husband for good, much less offering to be one of his assistants. He was both perversely pleased and rather distressed—"I am truly sorry that it has come to this, Madame," he'd said.

She'd smiled brightly at him. "I have found love, purpose, and a home, doctor," she'd said. "What more do I need for happiness?"

That very moment, Lemay knew he would never regret this decision.

* * *

"I think he's starting to regret this decision," Nostradamus says.

Aramis looks up from adjusting his horse's tack. "What?"

"Doctor _Lemay_ ," Nostradamus clarifies, slow and insistent, "my _master_."

Aramis rolls his eyes, briefly considers just leaving this madman to continue to ramble to the horses, but he _is_ rather curious. "And why is he regretting it, pray tell?"

"The future is bleak, hopeless and bloody," Nostradamus says, and he sweeps a rake across the hay-strewn floor with a flourish. "And Paris will be the first to fall to ruins. Your protection means nothing—he should've fled a long time ago, and established a new life in the provinces."

Aramis smiles, a little pityingly. "An honourable man does not run from duty or love," he says. "That he chose to stay here and help despite the danger does your master great credit."

"Mistaking foolhardiness for bravery, infatuation for love, and mindlessness for duty—ah!" Nostradamus closes his eyes and crosses himself. "The devil has already started whispering in your ear—I knew it from the day I first set eyes on you. The end is nigh, Monsieur Aramis—sooner, perhaps, for you than anybody else. I can only tell you to prepare yourself."

"Indeed?" Aramis forces a laugh he does not really feel. "I'll bear it in mind, my friend," he says, and leads his horse out of the stables.

* * *

Lemay is poring over a most peculiarly complex treatise on bleeding as a treatment for suppuration of the blood when Constance bursts open the door. He startles, nearly falling off his chair.

"Doctor," she says, a little breathlessly, "I believe you have a patient."

Lemay shoves his papers away and gets up, already rolling up his sleeves. "If you would quickly describe the wound to me, madame, I will prepare my instruments—"

"Oh. Oh! No, doctor, he is—well, he is an old patient of yours." She disappears briefly, then returns with a most reluctant d'Artagnan with her, dragging him by his arm as though he were a small child about to have a bath.

"Ah, Monsieur d'Artagnan," Lemay says warmly. Sometimes he still dreams of the day he'd had his hands nearly buried in this man's belly, pulling him desperately back from the brink; to see him standing and hale now feels like an answered prayer. "I trust you are healing well?"

"I s'pose," d'Artagnan mutters, a little sullenly. "You, of course, have my unending gratitude for that, doctor. I'll just lea—"

"If you could just check his wound, doctor Lemay," Constance says, firmly pushing d'Artagnan into a chair.

"Aramis said it was healing well!"

"Well, Aramis wasn't the one who pulled the bullet out of a gaping hole in your stomach, and he certainly was not the one who nursed you through the days of illness that followed!"

"Constance, he clearly knows what he's talking about—"

"You know, d'Artagnan, for the life of me, I don't understand why you just _can't_ —"

Lemay clears his throat. Their glares immediately snap to him, and a part of him quails. Just a little. "I trust Monsieur Aramis' judgment, of course—he does have a lot of experience in these matters. _But_ ," he adds as d'Artagnan shoots a triumphant look at Constance, "I would like to have a look at my handiwork. It will not take long."

With no little reluctance, d'Artagnan lifts his shirt. There's a thick, knotted scar where the bullet had entered and Lemay had operated; thankfully, there appears to be no visible signs of inflammation. There are smaller scars from where Lemay had to drain the wound repeatedly when it had inevitably suppurated—d'Artagnan had had one foot in the afterlife for a dangerously long time. He gently feels along the scars, flinches along with d'Artagnan when he hisses, then along the ribs, which are far more prominent against the skin than he remembers.

He leans back. "Your recovery has been nothing short of remarkable, Monsieur d'Artagnan," he says. "Of course, wasting after such a severe illness is expected, and you must—"

"Thank you," d'Artagnan says, and gets up and leaves in such a hurry that he knocks the chair over. Constance shoots Lemay an apologetic look and goes after d'Artagnan, and he can hear them arguing long after they've left.

d'Artagnan and his three friends, while usually civil and occasionally warm, begin to behave even more peculiarly after that incident. Lemay swears he can feel Athos' eyes on the back of his neck wherever he goes, staring balefully from above the rim of a wine glass; Porthos seems to train with almost unnecessarily violent gusto every time Lemay happens to cross the practice field, and Aramis, well. Frankly, Lemay is frightened by the increasingly terrifying nature of his frequent talks with Nostradamus.

Much to his consternation, he is trapped one evening at the mess table by Aramis and Porthos. "If you could kindly _explain_ —"

"So you love Constance, is that it?" Porthos asks.

Lemay blinks. Aramis places a despairing hand over his eyes. "We'd discussed a more subtle approach," he says.

"Subtle's a waste of time," Porthos says dismissively. "And you're not the one dealing with d'Artagnan's panic."

"Truly, that you have volunteered to manage d'Artagnan's anxiety is most admirable, Porthos. In the true spirit of _one for all_."

"That's only because you and Athos refused to—"

"I don't love Constance," Lemay says loudly, wishing suddenly, desperately, that he is anywhere in Paris but in front of these two Musketeers, having this particular conversation. "You can reassure Monsieur d'Artagnan that I have—no such designs, although she is a wonderful woman, and if I—I mean! She is clearly in love with him—"

Porthos laughs and claps a heavy hand against Lemay's back that almost sends the doctor falling face-down on the table. "Told you we had nothin' to worry about!"

* * *

Later that night, Lemay visits Captain Treville's office with a bottle of brandy. They talk till the wee hours of dawn, and Lemay retires to his quarters a considerably relieved man.

* * *

Constance joins Lemay at the balcony overlooking the practice yard. "It would seem that you await their arrival far more than I do," Constance tells him, teasingly, but he's far too used to the cracks at the edges of her voice to mistake it for anything else.

"One does like to be prepared for any eventuality," Lemay says, watching as the blood-red sun finally sinks beneath the horizon and he can hear the distant sound of several horse hooves. "Especially when it comes to this regiment."

Merely minutes later, bells herald the arrival of the soldiers, trooping in after nearly three months. Lemay and Constance go down to collect the wounded.


End file.
